Monday, May 3, 2010

The Red Sox Web site has a lot of good tickets available for all 4 Angels games this week, no doubt due in part to the Sox rough start. Up to 8 seats together are available for most of the games in prices ranging from $28 to $95 per ticket.

There are also tickets available on the Web site for the Friday and Sunday night Yankee games, but those are single scattered tickets. Your best bet for the Yankee games might be to call the ticket office at 877-733-7699 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. By speaking to someone in the office you can probably get 2 or more scattered seats fairly close together, which you can't do on the Web site. Also, if you wait until Thursday, pairs of seats together are likely to open up for the Yankee games.

Calling the ticket office to buy them is also a good idea if you are buying a lot of tickets for the Angels series, as you will save the $4.25 per ticket online purchase service charge. (When you buy on the phone you pay a $10 service charge, regardless of how many tickets you buy.) The downside is that with the higher than usual availability of tickets, you may be on hold for a long time this week. Try calling right at 10 a.m.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

The much ballyhooed Jerry Remy Sports Bar and Grill opened this week at 1265 Boylston St., just a block from Fenway (in fact, the back of the bar has large windows that are just across from Fenway Park on Van Ness Street). Remy and his partners have sunk $5 million into the restaurant and bar, which includes huge TVs and a full menu of appetizers, burgers, sandwiches, steaks and other entrees. Nothing on the menu is very expensive, but nothing is all that inexpensive either. With the exception of 3 of the steaks, all the sandwiches, burgers, and entrees are between $9 and $19.

The restaurant is likely to be very successful, particularly for the novelty factor and the fact that Remy is so well-liked by the majority of Red Sox Nation. We'll have to wait and see how it does on nights when there is no Red Sox game at Fenway.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

The Red Sox put tickets on sale on December 12th during their annual Christmas at Fenway event. As usual, select games for April, May, and (beginning on Sunday morning) September were offered for sale. While almost all the good seats together were sold in the first day, as of December 20th there are still plenty of standing room and obstructed view seats available. This is a bit unusual, as even getting 8 standing room tickets for a game in a single order was difficult in years past a week after tickets went on sale. This may signal a slightly smaller demand for tickets this year, which would not be surprising, given the team's finish to the season last year and the sagging economy.

The next chance Sox fans have to buy good tickets to games is likely to be January 30th, when the team is expected to offer tickets for the really "good" games this year -- June, July, August, and some weekends in April, May, and September that aren't available yet.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Once again, the Red Sox are putting tickets on sale for select April and May games this Saturday, December 12th at 10 a.m. The tickets will be made available online at redsox.com or by calling their automated phone ticketing system at 888-REDSOX6. Simultaneously, lucky fans who were selected through an online lottery will be able to purchase tickets in person at Fenway Park during their 7th annual "Christmas at Fenway" event.

The tickets being put on sale are the following: 6 series in April and May against the Rays, Rangers, Orioles, Angels, Blue Jays, and Twins, with the Rays (April 16-18) and the Orioles (April 23-25) series being the only weekend games available. In addition, Sox Pax will be available. Sox Pax are 4-game ticket packages which allow you to buy up to 4 tickets for each game (16 total tickets). These are highly sought-after as 7 of the 10 Sox Pax offerings include a game against the Yankees, and the other 3 Sox Pax include only weekend games. The games in the Sox Pax are scattered throughout the season (not just April and May). For specific information about Sox Pax, go to this page on the Red Sox Web site.

Getting tickets during a general Red Sox onsale date is notoriously hard, whether it be this Saturday or the last Saturday in January, when tickets for June through September games go on sale. You are battling the hundreds of thousands of Red Sox fans in New England and across the country, as well as many ticket resellers who attack the ticketing system from as many angles as possible.

Your strategy for getting tickets: There are basically two things you can do.

1) Go to redsox.com a few minutes before 10 a.m. and click on the order tickets button until it says you are in the Virtual Waiting Room. From there it is a waiting game. The page will refresh every 30 seconds, so you will know you are still in the waiting room. You may be in the waiting room for up to 12 hours before you are offered the chance to buy tickets. Sadly, if you have to wait that long, there is likely to only be scattered single tickets available. You don't have to sit by your computer when you are in the waiting room. You can move around the house and check back every 10 minutes or so. (In the first hour you should check more frequently in case you are lucky enough to be offered tickets). To increase your chances of getting out of the waiting room faster and being offered tickets, set up as many computers as you have in the house side by side so you can monitor them.

2) In addition to having your Web browser open and being in the Virtual Waiting Room, you should try to get through to the telephone automated ticketing system. The number to call is 888-RED-SOX6 (888-733-7696). This requires much more patience and perseverance than the online system, due to the constant redialing. Most people can only bear that redialing for 20 to 30 minutes before they give up. If you are going to call the phone system, you should do it in the morning, so at least if you get through you will get pretty good tickets. To alleviate the boredom of redialing you can watch a movie to pass the time.